Category: Finance

Homebuyers in Tampa, Florida are loving the accelerating real estate market. Many beautiful homes are for sale, and prices still remain affordable. The Tampa-St. Petersburg area offers prime career, educational, and healthcare opportunities, in addition to the best weather and most beautiful scenery in the U.S.

Not everyone looking for a house in the Tampa area has perfect credit, but that doesn’t mean they have to remain renters. If you have the resources to buy a home, past bad credit need not freeze you out of this hot real estate market. The Associates Home Loan of Florida, Inc. helps Tampa home buyers with attractive bad credit loans.

How to boost your credit score

During the 2008 recession, millions of Americans lost their jobs. With the housing market in free fall, foreclosure rates skyrocketed. Households that once enjoyed steady incomes and great credit scores suddenly found themselves down on their luck.
For many, this was the first time they experienced bad credit.

Delinquent payments, overextended credit lines, and accounts in collection bring down credit scores. Because they represent liabilities, they make getting new credit difficult. Creditors fear that the borrower will be forced to repay all of this outstanding debt, forcing them into default on any new obligations.

As the time since defaults increases, this risk decreases, and the credit score gradually rebounds. Many borrowers in default enter credit counseling, go through foreclosure, or file bankruptcy. These actions often result in debt being eliminated, which helps credit score in the long run, though credit scores decline sharply right after these events. Most mortgage loan programs require a period of time to pass after these events before borrowers qualify.

There are many strategies that help individuals rebuild credit. New, good credit pushes the score higher. Thomas Nitzsche, senior media relations coordinator at Clear Point Credit Counseling Services in Atlanta, recommends rebuilding your credit right away after a life event causes bad credit. As a first step, he counsels requesting a copy of your credit report. Look for favorable credit and do whatever you can to shore up poor credit and have inaccuracies removed. If you lack much favorable credit, you need to open new trade lines that can build a reliable payment history.

Opening a secured credit card is a simple and effective way to rebuild your credit. Once your secured credit card payments create a record, you are likely to receive offers for low-limit subprime unsecured cards. Though these have high interest rates and fees, they help rebuild credit, which results in more, better credit card offers. Many banks and credit unions offer credit builder CDs, which help you establish a loan repayment history.

Should borrowers take out bad credit loans?

There are many great loan options available to people trying to rebuild their credit scores. Taking out bad credit loans helps immensely because if you don’t establish new credit, options for big-ticket item loans remain limited. Nerd Wallet recommends credit builder loans in addition to secured and subprime credit cards.

Offered by many smaller banks and credit unions, credit builder loans receive less advertising than other subprime loan products, though they can have a huge impact of credit scores. They are often termed “fresh start loans” or “starting over” loans. People with low or no credit qualify because the borrower secures the loan amount at the bank or credit union.

For example, Joe has a recent foreclosure and bankruptcy and needs to reestablish his credit profile. He applies for a fresh start loan at his local bank. He deposits $1,000 and takes out a $1,000 loan with a monthly payment of $80. As he makes his $80 payments each month, the bank reports the on-time payments to the three major credit bureaus. His consistent payment record drastically increases his score. At the end of the loan, Joe withdraws his $1,000 and now qualifies for a larger, unsecured loan.

Mortgage payments boost credit

Whether or not to purchase a home is a personal decision that has a great deal to do with your circumstances. What are your family’s needs? What is the state of the real estate market in your area?

If you need a home and the market is good, then it’s worth considering. The sooner you buy a home, the sooner you start building equity. Waiting several years can result in buying after home prices have increased drastically. This means a lot of money going out the window over the life of a mortgage.

When considering a mortgage, always analyze your financial wherewithal. Can you establish a budget that doesn’t leave you overextended? Is your income stable in the long term? Selling a house after just a year or two can prove difficult or impossible. You need to know you can keep up the house payments for at least 5 years.

When households have income stability, bad credit loans for mortgages make sense. Since you know you can make the payments, you know you will establish a great credit history. Not only do you gain equity in your home, you also gain the credit score that qualifies you for attractive refinance options.

Being a real estate investor is rewarding, but it requires hard work at the start. If you have some capital to invest in land and properties and want a passive income on these assets in the long run, the real estate is a good business path for you.

According to Robert Tweed, a known real estate investor and CEO of TFS Properties, there are several steps you can take in order to succeed in becoming a real estate investor. In this post, we will be discussing 7 strategies and how you can apply them before starting to invest in real estate.

How to Become Financially Stable by Being a Real Estate Investor

1. Find profitable locations

A profitable location is a land or property located in a prime area. This means that if you put yourself in the shoes of your buyer, this can be a good place to live in, start a business, or rent out a place for a purpose. If you are looking into investing in commercial properties, do you research about the location’s foot traffic, accessibility and possible market profile? If you are investing in housing, what are the places nearby your property? Are there hospitals, schools, groceries and other shops needed by your renters? These are the things you need to consider before buying a real estate property.

2. Seek professional help

As a beginner, you might want to seek professional help. Robert Tweed says, “Getting a consultation with real estate experts takes out all the guesswork in your business. This means more profitability for you and more time to handle all the important decisions you need to make in your investments,”. Companies like TFS Properties help investors find prime locations and other pre-selling opportunities that can provide a large amount of profit for their clients.

3. List your properties in big databases

Once you are done with investing in your real estate assets, marketing is the next step. Make sure to list your properties in known databases such as Zillow, Realtor.com, and Trulia. For small-scale rentals, you can list your properties in Airbnb. These databases get a lot of online traffic. Make sure to post good quality and detailed pictures of your properties from the outside and inside, provide specifications and prices. Properties in these databases are more likely to get leased or bought.

4. Expand your online presence

Expanding your online presence is also important. As a real estate investor, you can create your own website showcasing your various property and land investments. You can hire a web designer to create a professional-looking website to draw more potential clients in. Create social media accounts such as Facebook pages, Twitter and LinkedIn. These are places where people are looking for business and housing opportunities. You can reach out to clients without the need to look depend on referrals.

5. Treat your assets as they deserve

Another important aspect of being a successful real estate investor is by taking care of your investments. Robert Tweed mentions, “Unlike a traditional company, your real estate properties are like your ’employees’. They’re the ones working for you, making you money, and giving your company value in the long run. It is essential to take care of your properties by giving due maintenance and renovation if needed.” Your real estate investments need to have regular cleaning, utility checks and other maintenance concerns to give satisfaction to your clients.

6. Organize your bills and taxes

Real estate investors are not spared from taxes, let alone property taxes. For owners of condominiums and apartments, you may be the one in charge of paying utility bills such as water and electricity in aggregate. Make sure that all these payments are organized, secure, and accurate to prevent losses in your profits. If you own a large scale real estate property, it would be helpful to have an accountant to take care of all your tax requirements.

7. Use profits to expand your business

This is the secret in where the money lies in real estate. Compared to slaving away to a 9-5 job, real estate is a scalable business. However, it takes persistence, wise investments and a marketing strategy to make things profitable in the long run. When starting small, make sure that you save some of your profit margins to put money back in the business for future investments. The money you earn from renting out a single unit can be used to buy another property. The money you used to convert and sell a house can help you find bigger real estate investments you can profit in.

Financial stability is definitely attainable for a real estate investor, as long as the right steps are done. Owning a piece of land is something that never goes out of value, and that is what makes real estate a long-standing investment that can earn you a fortune.

Settling debt and claiming back the financial freedom that debt takes away is a dream many pursue diligently, but due to challenges in the settlement process, some people give in and are met with heavy liabilities. This should not happen if the right measures are embraced to make the settlement process a success. One of the ways you can settle debt is through pursuing the problem without the help of a professional. This has its own downsides and is also the reason some people opt for the second option, which is hiring a debt settlement company like Nationwide Debt Reduction Services to help.

What benefits are there in settling alone?

People who pursue the debt settlement process alone are able to enjoy several benefits. First, they don’t incur the cost of hiring someone to do it on their behalf, so they are able to save a considerable amount of money in the process. Different debt settlement companies charge different rates and it’s not likely you will get a rate you can comfortably work with, their effectiveness notwithstanding. However, going into debt settlement alone comes with many responsibilities and could prove more challenging than thought.

Why hiring a debt settlement company is the best idea

Hiring a company to help in debt settlement is a stress-free way to pursue the settlement of debt. It allows you to enjoy the peace needed to service the debt. Debt settlement companies offer you numerous benefits including a comprehensive review of your credit to come up with a plan that can help you to clear your debt. They also facilitate debt consolidation, which brings all the debt you owe different creditors under one umbrella for easy settlement.

One of the most important things a debt settlement company helps you to achieve is negotiating for the right terms in the debt settlement process. These are experts with many years in the industry and industry and their contacts extend into different experts at leading credit companies, so their proposed terms are likely to get an approval compared to when you choose to present the information yourself. They have great negotiation skills that allow them to approach creditors for a deal that will give you peace during settlement.

Communication dynamics

Additionally, debt settlement professionals change the communication dynamics and they have power in their hands to make things happen faster. For example, you could present some information to a creditor then a settlement professional relays the same message verbatim after you. Chances are the message presented by the settlement expert will be accorded more respect and considered important than if you present it yourself. Debt settlement companies command huge respect and honor in the industry and are connected to many creditors, so it becomes so easy to help you clear your debts. The negotiation a debt settlement professional initiates is received well and you are at the end of the day given a fair rate. With this support, you can reduce calls from debt collectors and you will eliminate any harassment from creditors.